Photo by Beth Eloise Fraser
Hailing from England’s capital, The Imaginary Hat creates a sound self-penned as 1920s Punk Rock. As much as your imagination might work with that tag it will only guess at the rich mix of flavours making up the band’s music and new EP Age of Anxiety. Alongside their fusion of rock, punk and 20’s inspired jazz you can find essences of rockabilly, swing, folk and more. It makes for a proposition and new release which is unpredictable, mischievous, and seriously appetising.
The London based outfit formed in 2014 and swiftly earned a potent, attention luring reputation for their music and live presence across the capital and beyond. This year has seen the band emerge with a new and expanded line-up and now second EP, Age of Anxiety, the successor to their well-received debut, Ladies And Gentlemen Kindly Remove Your Hats released this past January.
The spirited rhythms of drummer Phil Joyce kick EP opener Pretty Little Features into life, their increasingly tenacious antics luring ears, appetite, and the guitar jangle of Luke Fraser. Swiftly his vocals also jump in, the track bouncing round with its fifties rock ‘n’ roll scented jazz punk. With a touch of eighties band The Stargazers to it and also the jump blues hues of a Louis Jordan, the song leaps and swings, successfully insisting on the same from the listener. Punk riffs taunt throughout as the flames of Nick Smith’s Trombone unite with the sax of Oscar Ives-Owen; each adding to the virulent contagion of an outstanding start to the release.
A trombone sigh brings up the following Tick Tick Tick, its enticement soon joined by the boisterous stroll of Sam Dimond’s magnetic bass. Vocals again simply entice as they dance devilishly within the similarly insistent sounds around them, enterprise which becomes more bedlamic and frantic by the second but with reins which hauls the chaos back into a just as addictive imaginative canter. You can call the track whatever style you wish but at its heart it is punk rock and relishing its anarchy.
Right Side is next, uncaging a thick dark grumble around another instinctively catchy lure of rhythms. It is infectiousness and swing echoed in Fraser’s vocals as the track prowls, as good as stalks ears and imagination. Bordering blues funereal in gait, salacious seduction in tone, the track physically smoulders as it sears itself into the memory, it too becoming more hellacious in tone and texture by the handful of seconds.
The Imaginary Hat is back in full bounce with Monkey Glands straight after, the track like a swing jazz equivalent of Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers at their devilish while Until One Of Us Dies closes up the release with its dark seduction. Both tracks just hit the spot, the first a collusion of punk ’n’ roll fuelled flavours akin to Eighteen Nightmares at the Lux meets The Strangler Figs under the tutelage of Cab Calloway with its successor unleashing flames of jazz conjured rock with increasing rigour across a landscape as mercurial as it is dramatic.
Though into their fourth year, 2018 might be the moment The Imaginary Hat get crowded by much broader and eager attention. Their two EP’s this year, especially Age of Anxiety, give evidence that it is more than deserved.
Age of Anxiety is out now, available @ https://theimaginaryhat.bandcamp.com/music
https://www.theimaginaryhat.com/ https://www.facebook.com/theimaginaryhat/ https://twitter.com/theimaginaryhat
Pete RingMaster 17/07/2018
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
It is an outstanding start reinforced by the senses transfixing tale of The Ghost of Rab McVie. Strings and their electronic counterparts quickly infest the imagination, the first from the suggestive touch and craft of Susannah Clark. Metcalfe is soon within their descriptive midst, voice similarly nurturing thoughts as the song leads the listener into its melancholic heart. There is a beauty to it though which just seduces ears and imagination but with an earthiness keeping the dark surroundings fully in view before the album’s title track provides the gateway into a nefarious journey. Feeling like being trapped in a Celtic Wickerman driven nightmare, the song simultaneously overwhelms, indeed suffocates, and seduces all with increasing intensity. It is quite superb with the craft of Clark simply irresistible.
The opener remains the pinnacle of the release but is seriously harassed throughout with next up Young Blood needing little time to seduce and pervert ears and imagination. Ravishing the senses like a defiled fusion of Rob Zombie, Arthur Brown, and The Stooges, the track is wired rock ‘n’ roll as off-kilter as it is skilfully woven to invade and trespass the psyche. Deceptively catchy it is aural loco, a ruinous psych rock invasion infecting the listener like radiation.
The robustly stirring encounter is followed by The Revelation, an even more imposingly catchy enticement body and vocal chords alone fall before in swift time. Co-written with Ben Christo, long-serving guitarist with The Sisters of Mercy, the track roams with a predacious intent, its creative indoctrination built on waves of persistence honed into thought provoking, body twisting primal seduction. With an additional Ministry-esque nagging around glimpses of cinematic theatre, the song is pure devil spawn scheming, Watts the insidious engineer.
I’m Not The One comes next, its cowpunk flavouring another easy to embrace temptation and the spicy lining to the track’s contagious swing before the album’s title track brings a dirtier, grittier slab of rock ‘n’ roll to the party. Both tracks hit the spot dead centre, the second with a tone reminding of The Peacocks but equally each is overshadowed by the rousing rumble and incitement of Losing The Fight. With anthemic rhythms alone stoking up feverish fires, the song ensnares eager ears and appetite, treating both to a mesh of sultry melodies over relentlessly catchy rhythms.
The EP’s title track is first up, its homage to cult movie gem Evil Dead pure invasive theatre. From its initial piano cursed fingering of the imagination, the track twists into a predacious stroll with infection seeping from every pore. Swinging beats and a heavy rapacious bassline courts the senses whilst a seductively nagging hook teases, Firewalker barging in with his vocal roar as raucously backed by the vociferous tones of Phillips. Dragging the listener into its transfixing hellbound realm prone to caustic expulsions, harrying them with a gloriously plodding prowl, the track reveals itself as raw virulence cast in something approaching The Cramps meeting Th’ legendary Shack Shakers as The Orson Family add their incestuous lures ultimately emerging as a depraved invasion all of the band’s making.
Your Dangerous Mind has a less undisciplined bounce, its saunter more flirtation than aggression and just as irresistible as Hampshire with grainy texture croons, backed by his cohorts within tangy grooves and hip inciting rhythms. The r&b essences of the song are just as ripe as its brisk punk serenade, chaining a body and imagination which is soon firmly hooked again by the sultry rumba of I Don’t Understand Her Any More. As with most tracks, a collusion of decades is at masterful play, sixties garage pop and seventies surf rock hues potent spices as too the fuzzy buzz of organ in the gentle but keen canter of a song.